AV diet

[Victor K]

Has anyone here tried the dietary guidelines laid out in AV's second book. Has anyone followed his daily protocol to gain weight? To anyone who has, how'd it go?

The diet he outlines is:
fruit - 5%(4-6 oz)
Meat - 25%-30%(1-3 pounds)
Fat(liberal amounts butter, plenty of eggs) - 25%(8-24 oz)
Veggie Juice (mostly celery) - 25-30%(2-6 cups)
milk - 10-20%(up to 2 quarts)

Wondering if it's worth the effort to get my hands on raw dairy in Canada x.x. I'd really like to gain some healthy fat on my body.

[marcuspaleo]

I havent bought his second book. I wasnt sure whether it was worth buying. is it?

Are those recommendations his daily diet for putting on weight? If so, that amount is incredible!! Up to  720 grams of extra fat!?! wtf!
Also, by meat, does be mean lean meat?

Can you tell me what he would eat on a daily basis?

[A_Tribe_Called_Paleo]

I have both of AVs books. Dont bother with them. Eat whole raw paleo foods.

[Victor K]

I would very much recommend his second book. I don't understand why people knock him here. He has observed and documented the effects of raw foods on more people than anyone else(that I know). I have personally found his knowledge to be accurate. I think some people react adversely to dairy & eggs. Which is a big part of his diet. So they don't find his information useful. For raw milk he says to let it come to room temperature first before drinking. Cold milk can cause allergic reactions(something about the milk proteins making into the bloodstream undigested consequently). If theres still reaction he says to make kefir and add raw honey to help digest. For raw eggs some people just adverse reactions. Aajonus claims reactions may just be a detox. Bloating from milk may just be your body using the extra minerals to get rid of toxins in gut. He claims diarrhea/vomiting are always detoxes. People may heve true allergies too. I'd be curious to hear why many people here don't find his information helpful.

[cherimoya_kid]

Victor, AV's preaching of raw dairy has lost him a lot of credibility here. It just doesn't work well for some people, period. Guy-Claude Burger's nutritional practices get more respect because they're more in line with what works for people, as well as how we evolved to eat.

[TylerDurden]

AV promoted a very artificial modern diet which appealed to people who did not want to eat raw meats to any real extent. So raw, dairy, raw veggie-juice, raw coconut cream, raw honey and raw, ground nuts were promoted endlessly as THE main components of the Primal Diet solely because they were easiest, re taste, for former cooked-foodists to try out, and, needless to say, many people suffered thereby from nutritional imbalances etc. . Also, AV's constant insistence that it was impossible to be allergic to raw dairy grated on people like me. I was fooled for a time with his detox explanations etc., but, in the end, realised AV was dead wrong on this.

Another point AV forgot was that many illnesses cause or aggravate allergies so that promoting raw foods that are often allergenic to ill people is a really bad idea.

[dariorpl]

AV promoted a very artificial modern diet which appealed to people who did not want to eat raw meats to any real extent. So raw, dairy, raw veggie-juice, raw coconut cream, raw honey and raw, ground nuts were promoted endlessly as THE main components of the Primal Diet solely because they were easiest, re taste, for former cooked-foodists to try out, and, needless to say, many people suffered thereby from nutritional imbalances etc.

This is completely wrong. The primal diet has always been primarily a meat-based diet; with dairy, eggs, honey, vegetable juices, coconut cream, fruits, nuts and seeds and oils only as supplements to the meat. AV has always said that plenty of people stayed healthy by being entirely carnivorous. The other foods help deal with less than optimal health, by promoting detoxes and by helping to manage the detoxes.

[TylerDurden]

Rubbish. AV always recommended vast amounts of raw dairy and raw honey etc., never just as supplements but as major foods of the primal diet. When I told him via e-mail that I was doing his kind of diet minus the raw dairy and raw veggie-juice, he simply told me that I was clearly not doing his Primal Diet at all. Besides, his recipes mostly called for raw dairy for example.

[dariorpl]

From the recipe book, general diet, daily intake: (p39)

* 1-3 pounds (3-9 cups) of raw meat (red meat, and/or seafood, and/or fowl).
* 8-24 ounces of raw fat (unsalted butter, cream, coconut cream juiced from coconut, meat, eggs, unsalted cheese, coconut, avocado, oils pressed under 96F)
* 8-12 ounces raw milk.
* 4-6 ounces only of raw fruit with equal amounts of raw fat.
* 2-6 cups of raw green vegetable juices.

The recipes and sauces for meat are mainly for making it taste better, not for improved health. He's always said that meat is digested better alone or with another raw fat. In fact the main reason to add another raw fat to meats is so that you don't use up all your meat for energy and have no nutrients leftover for healing and rebuilding. Most people don't like to consume huge amounts of meat alone and AV was sensitive to that, but he never thought of it as a problem, much the opposite in fact, generally the more raw meat you can eat, the better, especially if it's high.

[dariorpl]

Wondering if it's worth the effort to get my hands on raw dairy in Canada x.x. I'd really like to gain some healthy fat on my body.

Yes, totally worth it. Once you start having dairy, your diet will seem incomplete without it. It also promotes heavy detoxes and helps to manage them, which is why many people here don't like it. They start having dairy, have a detox and think it's some lactose intolerance or allergy or something, and quit.

[cherimoya_kid]

Yes, totally worth it. Once you start having dairy, your diet will seem incomplete without it. It also promotes heavy detoxes and helps to manage them, which is why many people here don't like it. They start having dairy, have a detox and think it's some lactose intolerance or allergy or something, and quit.

TylerDurden almost detoxed his TEETH before he gave up on raw dairy.

[sabertooth]

It would be interesting to know if there are indeed any super healthy specimens who have followed the AV protocol with large amounts of dairy for extended periods of time.

Most people who go for the primal diet are already damaged in a way that may prevent them from ever becoming a supreme specimen of health and vitality, regardless of what approach they take, still it would be affirming to the AV followers if there was someone of outstanding quality to take up the primal torch and help evolve the diet further and Shepard AVs lost flocks to the promise land of milk and honey tolerance .

[TylerDurden]

Most of the other recipes include raw dairy in them and often including raw nuts and raw coconut cream and sometimes even raw honey. AV wanted to get as many people into his diet as possible and knew damn well that raw meats were more difficult to get used to than other raw foods. I agree that he did once claim in his books that raw meats were more  useful for rebuilding the body's health than raw eggs but he rarely liked to admit such.

[TylerDurden]

Yes, totally worth it. Once you start having dairy, your diet will seem incomplete without it. It also promotes heavy detoxes and helps to manage them, which is why many people here don't like it. They start having dairy, have a detox and think it's some lactose intolerance or allergy or something, and quit.

The detox lie is one of the main reasons why people quit the primal diet after a while. There is a big difference between a genuine detox which is minor and does not usually coincide with a  particular raw food, and false detoxes which are really just genuine allergies to non-palaeo raw foods such as raw dairy or raw veggie juice.

[dariorpl]

Most of the other recipes include raw dairy in them and often including raw nuts and raw coconut cream and sometimes even raw honey. AV wanted to get as many people into his diet as possible and knew damn well that raw meats were more difficult to get used to than other raw foods. I agree that he did once claim in his books that raw meats were more  useful for rebuilding the body's health than raw eggs but he rarely liked to admit such.

Here's a few quotes that took me 5 minutes to find:

Prior to the importation of German cooking cauldrons, Eskimos ate their meat raw. The Eskimo-diet was 99% animal products (fish, Caribou, seal, moose, bear, whale, etc.). Eskimos lived free of degenerative diseases. Based on my experiences, eating raw food was the primary factor that enabled them to stay strong, energetic, and happy, and to live without disease under strenuous climatic conditions. (recipe book, p14)

For some people, eating raw meat is nearly impossible unless it has a familiar flavor. Therefore, most of the recipes I present in this book are to increase peoples’ appetite for raw meat. (recipe book, p26)

I suggest that we do not drink so much milk that we cancel our appetite for meat and other foods. (recipe book, p36)

Even though I have hundreds of [meat] sauce-recipes, usually I eat meats plain. When I spice meats, usually it is a time when I am repulsed by or bored with plain meats. If I do not eat meats daily, after a day or two I do not feel or function as well. Sauces help me eat meats at those times. (recipe book, p62)

[TylerDurden]

This does not change the fact that most of AV's recipes included raw dairy etc.

[sabertooth]

I havent read AVs book, but I do agree that from time to time having a tasty sause to dip my meat does add varity and flavor, though using it in a way so that people who have not yet become accustom to raw meat, can aviod tasting raw meat, seems more of a crutch and could be counterproductive to the development of instinctive paleo eatting habits.

I typically eat everything without any fancy seasonings but on occasion I will experment. I like Toum- its a middel eastern sause made with garlic parsly and raw yogert. I regularly use coconut butter as a side dish to any meat plate... other condoments used sparingly- spicy mustard, a few slivers of pickeled ginger, red chilly, coconut curry.

[cherimoya_kid]

...seems more of a crutch and could be counterproductive to the development of instinctive paleo eatting habits.

Exactly. I have nothing against mixing foods and using condiments. However, if you never really learn how to get in touch with your food instincts, then you're just sort of guessing as to what you need to eat.

[TylerDurden]

If one checks articles on what palaeo tribes really ate one finds that they ate a very wide variety indeed, far greater than what any of us eat. I also can get tired of eating certain raw meats and I then switch to either another wild game animal or eat mainly raw seafood etc. Recipes are mainly for beginners, imo, especially females. The first question women usually ask me when starting out is what RPD recipes there might be.Hmm, I do not think we have any official threads on recipes but there were some wonderfully aesthetic ones made by Inger and others in the culinary creations forum, as I recall.

[dariorpl]

TylerDurden almost detoxed his TEETH before he gave up on raw dairy.

Where can I read more about this?

[TylerDurden]

Where can I read more about this?

I think I gave my, er, "life-story" as regards my past ill-health on the rawpaleodiet yahoo group and probably also in the very early posts on this forum. Perhaps my journal section has some mention thereof. Pretty depressing reading, despite the eventual recovery.

Basically, my teeth were very loose by the time I switched from aan SMD diet to a  cooked-palaeo in my 20s. I could push them backwards and forwards quite a bit. My then raw vegan and fruitarian phase did not change my teeth-status. I then had a very small improvement when I switched to a sort of a pathetic  instintoish attempt at a  diet involving very low quality raw meats, and then when I consumed raw dairy afterwards while doing the Primal Diet, I would eventually find my teeth so loose that I was deathly afraid of losing them. After cutting out the raw dairy completely, I had to be very careful for a while  to age the raw grassfed meats a few days before I dared chew them, and even then I far preferred to just cut the raw meats into small slices and just bolt them down without chewing. It was a close thing - if I had continued with the raw dairy consumption for a few more months, I would have lost whole sections of my teeth for sure. I did not check the status of my teeth until 4 months later, at which point I was surprised to find that I could not move them any more with my tongue or fingers at all.

[dariorpl]

That's scary. I'm glad you managed to heal your teeth.

I've had a few loose teeth here and there, but now on the primal diet with as much dairy as I can get, they're fairly strong. It makes sense to me that dairy would make teeth strong, since it's the only thing babies need to grow their first teeth. Why do you think in your case it did the opposite?

[PaleoPhil]

I actually found that my dental health improved some by adding some dairy food back into my diet, though a particular mineral water seems to have been much more beneficial. I wonder if dairy food was especially helpful in the past for some people who didn't live in areas with mineral-rich water or soil? Just pondering.

[TylerDurden]

That's scary. I'm glad you managed to heal your teeth.

I've had a few loose teeth here and there, but now on the primal diet with as much dairy as I can get, they're fairly strong. It makes sense to me that dairy would make teeth strong, since it's the only thing babies need to grow their first teeth. Why do you think in your case it did the opposite?

I was heavily allergic to raw dairy. It turns out that chronic fatigue is one of those conditions which exacerbates allergic reactions so that was another factor.

Wai Genriuu has pointed out that while dairy might be good for bones in the short-term, that it leads to poor bones later on:-
http://www.4.waisays.com/ExcessiveCalcium.htm

[dariorpl]

Wai Genriuu has pointed out that while dairy might be good for bones in the short-term, that it leads to poor bones later on:-
http://www.4.waisays.com/ExcessiveCalcium.htm

There is no mention in there about raw versus pasteurized dairy. We all agree that pasteurized dairy is bad for your bones and teeth. So yes, countries that consume more pasteurized dairy will have more osteoporosis. But osteoporosis was rare when milk was mostly consumed raw back in the 1950's - 1920's and before.

Furthermore, many conventional dairy cows are given hormones to produce more milk (estrogen). So that milk is supercharged with estrogen, which is then ingested by us, so according to Wai Genriuu it should protect against osteoporosis, but it actually promotes it.

Dr Pottenger's studies on cats showed that cats fed a diet of 66% raw milk and 33% raw meat developed strong bones and were perfectly healthy, whereas those fed a diet of 66% pasteurized milk and 33% cooked meat developed osteoporosis, as well as many other diseases and completely died off by the third and fourth generations. He also found that putting domestic cats with osteoporosis on the raw milk and raw meat diet improved their condition and usually healed it completely if given enough time on raw. Same for taking sick cats from the cooked group and putting them on raw. He also found the same results when feeding the cats a 66% raw meat and 33% raw milk diet versus 66% cooked meat and 33% pasteurized milk diet.

This is very important because there is no way that cats would get such vast amounts of dairy in the wild other than before being weaned as cubs/kitten. It shows that raw milk is a powerful nutrient for mammals of all ages. And for various reasons, humans should be much more adapted to consuming dairy as adults than cats.

All this of course does not discount your own personal experience with raw dairy.